European Environment Agency framework contract for support on agriculture

According to the European Environment Agency (EEA) strategy 2009–2013, the aim of the EEA’s work in agriculture and forests for that period is to provide integrated analyses of land-use trends through assessments of their current and future impact on water, soils, air quality, biodiversity and landscapes. This will help to assess the impact of new societal demands, and demographic and technological trends on the natural environment, and to form a basis for policy evaluation and feedback into related sectoral and environmental policies. In order to fulfil these tasks the EEA published a tender in 2010 for two framework contracts for support, one on agriculture and one on forests.

Aims

The main outputs of these framework contracts must be in line with and contribute to the following strategic actions:

integrating economic and biophysical models and data to assess the driving forces behind the environmental impacts of socio-economic trends;

undertaking assessments of critical issues, both within Europe and globally;

supporting the development of environmental and ecosystem accounts to provide and update inputs to EEA information sources, including the European Ecosystem Assessment (EURECA) 2012, the State and Outlook Report on the European Environment (SOER) process, and indicator development.

The tasks to be performed will be related to the following thematic areas:

support to the update and methodological improvement of agri-environment indicators;

analysis, from an environmental perspective, of EU policies on agriculture and rural development;

environmental and ecosystems accounts in the agriculture sector;

bioenergy and biowaste energy potential from agriculture and forestry;

technological developments and innovation in agri-food and forestry production.